Hylodesmum podocarpum

Hylodesmum podocarpum, formerly placed in the genus Desmodium, is an erect perennial herb of the family Fabaceae widely distributed in temperate to subtropical East Asia, including China, Korea, Japan, the Russian Far East and northern Indochina, growing in open forests, forest margins, scrub and grassy mountain slopes from low elevations to about 2,000 metres. The plant arises from a woody rootstock and grows 50 to 100 centimetres tall, with slender, sparsely branched, finely appressed-pubescent stems. The alternate, long-petiolate leaves are pinnately trifoliolate; the terminal leaflet is rhombic-ovate to broadly ovate, 4 to 9 centimetres long, acuminate at the apex and cuneate at the base, while the lateral leaflets are smaller and asymmetrical. Small pale pink to purplish papilionate flowers about 4 to 6 millimetres long are borne in long, slender, terminal and axillary racemes or panicles in summer. The fruit is a flattened loment of two segments, each elliptic-rhombic, densely covered with minute hooked uncinate hairs that adhere readily to clothing and animal fur for dispersal.